Course Looks at House Renewal

While Dean of the Office of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson said as recently as Monday that the College administration had “no answers” concerning several major issues related to House renovation, a Graduate School of Design class is providing its own vision for Harvard’s future Houses—and often with an avant-garde twist.

The College is currently in the design phase of its large-scale House renewal project—the most extensive renovation of the College’s nine river and three Quad Houses, which will total an estimated $1 billion.

A second-year GSD course entitled “The Core Studio” provides masters of architecture students with an academic exercise emphasizing the practical considerations of architecture in “politics and real life,” according to Stephen Y.M. Fan ’04-’06. One of the main projects the class considers is House renewal.

A graduate student in the course, Fan coordinated a discussion for the class on House renovations Monday that included a panel of undergraduates, resident tutors, and alumni. The discussion, like the class in general, aimed to simulate “professional aspects of the field,” including the process of consulting a client.

As far as swing housing—one unresolved issue of House renewal—is concerned, the panel fielded proposals ranging from constructing temporary residential facilities in front of Lowell House, to constructing these facilities in the Church Street parking lot, to even building swing housing on top of the Quincy House dining hall.

Fan conceded that several of his peers’ proposals were “radical,” in part because they did not have to take budget concerns into account in their hypothetical recommendations.

“The issues that are raised may shed new light on the way people in the University think about their roles and own proposals,” said Design School Professor Jonathan Levi, who teaches the class.

Remeike J.B. Forbes ’11, one of six Dudley House undergraduates who participated in the panel, said the Dudley Co-op could serve as a model for what alternative housing at Harvard could entail. Residents of the Co-op communally prepare food and share chores,

Still, Forbes added that his “sense is that the House system wouldn’t change significantly. It will be more or less the same” after renovations—which Nelson said Monday would start in 2012—are complete.

Echoing suggestions proposed in the House Renewal Report—a 112-page document of wide-ranging residential recommendations released by the College administration in April—the GSD students also noted the need to bolster House interactions via neighborhood-wide facilities.

Though the class is not advising the College administration on House renovations in a professional capacity, Fan said College administrators will be present when the GSD students deliver their final projects at the end of the semester.

—Staff writer Bita M. Assad can be reached at bassad@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Ahmed N. Mabruk can be reached at amabruk@fas.harvard.edu.